You know Lassie would've brought me a key
by Amberdreams
Summary: Warnings: Unbeta'd so probably full of nonsense. Contains F Bombs. Rating etc: Gen, PG-13. For de nugis' birthday, some shenanigans in the Bat Cave.


**Title**: You know; Lassie would've brought me a key  
**Warnings**: Unbeta'd so probably full of nonsense.  
**Rating** **etc**: Gen, PG-13  
For **de_nugis**' birthday, some shenanigans in the Bat Cave.

* * *

"I think we've got mice," Dean declared out of the blue while he was dishing out second helpings of that delicious scrambled egg and bacon he'd taken to rustling up for breakfast, so Sam couldn't be blamed if he was a little distracted. Or inattentive. Or to be honest, flat out not listening.

"Mmm," Sam replied. Which could have meant anything from '_I agree',_ to '_this food is fricking amazing' _to '_did you know each scribe had their own idiosyncratic abbreviations for medieval latin?'_

"Or rats." Dean said. At least Sam thought that might have been what Dean meant to say, but as his brother's mouth was full of part-masticated breakfast at the time, it was hard to tell. Sam nodded absently and carefully turned the page of his latest find, a 13th century grimoire with the teeniest, tiniest cursive bookhand he'd ever come across. Reading it was a bitch.

Two days later, when Dean was still talking about an infestation of rats, Sam finally sat up and took notice. He'd finished with his translation of the grimoire, anyhow. According to the elder Winchester, these invisible rats were plaguing the Bat Cave worse than the town of Hamlin. The little bastards were everywhere, scritch, scritch, scritching in the walls day and night. And apparently making horrible little mewing, screeching noises when they weren't using their little claws to scritch.

"And you know, Sammy, I really hate rats."

"Man, I told you not to watch Willard," Sam said absently.

He was gradually taking in the fact that Dean had dismantled some of the panelling at the far end of the main library chamber while Sam had been engrossed in his work. How the hell had he not noticed Dean taking the room apart? Maybe Dean was right and Sam needed to get out more, but the pull of all these lovely books was so insidious… Sam wrenched his gaze away from a rare 15th century tome on necromancy with an effort, lifted his hand as if it had been scorched when he noticed he had been stroking the leather bindings of a 17th century treatise on werewolves.

Time to concentrate on the matter in hand before Dean decided that the rats liked eating books and wanted to burn the library in an attempt to rid the Bat Cave of this pestilential infestation. Sam shuddered at the thought. Dean might just be mad enough to commit such a sacrilegious act. He was bat-shit crazy half the time, after all.

"Mmff whmsm sfstf…"

Sam was good at interpreting Dean-speak but this was a little beyond his skills. All he could see of his brother at the moment was his denim-clad ass and his boots, and appealing as that view was, there wasn't a lot of body language to go on here. The rest of Dean seemed to have been swallowed by the hole in the wall that his excavation of the panelling had revealed.

"Dean, if you do find those rats, you're not going to be in much of a position to do anything about it," Sam pointed out, both reasonably, and as it turned out, prophetically.

Dean must have had a close encounter of the furry kind, because the next minute he was shrieking like a girl (which he would naturally deny until his dying day) and scrambling backwards on his hands and knees as fast as he could. He emerged covered in dust and cobwebs and Sam couldn't help laughing. Oh man. That was a good few years of blackmail material right there.

"Fucking rats! I told you Sam, the place is full of fucking rats!"

Dean gestured expansively to the wreckage of the library walls as if he fully expected a roiling mass of rodents to come pouring out to eat them both alive. Sam actually felt a real sense of anti-climax when the only furry creature to emerge did so with a meow, not a squeak. The ball of fluff sneakily pounced on Dean's trailing laces and the fearless hunter actually shrieked. Again.

When Sam managed to stop laughing, his sides were aching almost as much as that time he'd cracked two ribs ganking a dybbuk.

"Dude," he said, holding his knees and trying to catch his breath.

Dean was standing still, the most mortified expression imaginable on his face. Winding round his legs purring up a storm was Mama moggy, while tumbling out of the wall came three more of the cutest balls of fluff Sam had seen for a long time. Fluff Ball #1 had already found its way onto the table and was exploring Sam's latest pile of books.

"Well, I think we just found out why it's unlikely we have a rodent problem here, Dean. I think you can relax now, don't you?"

Dean didn't look much like relaxing any time soon, at least not while one of the kittens seemed intent on climbing his leg like a tree. His brother's face was glowing a charming cherry red under its pall of dust, and Sam smile got wider as he watched Dean try to retrieve a little of his lost dignity, stalking from the room muttering something about a shower. The effect was somewhat negated by the clinging ball of ginger fluff still attached to one pant leg, causing an exaggeration of Dean's bow legged gait as he made his hurried exit.

Sam eyed the bookworm aka Fluff Ball #1, who promptly rolled onto its back and waved its legs in the air.

"Don't worry," Sam said, with a conspiratorial wink. "He'll come round. He's always grumpy with strangers."

* * *

**A/N:** And there is a little picture of Fluff Ball #1 here if you are interested. i830 .photobucket albums/ zz224/ Amberdreams1960 /Birthdays/ De-nugisbithdaykitten. jpg (Just remove the spaces from the URL to make it work)


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